U.S COMMITTEE FOR REFUGEES AND IMMIGRANTS
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Ecocide as a Call to Urgency: The Need to Address Climate Displacement

October 8, 2024

Cover Photo: Michael Adams

In early September, Vanuatu, Fiji, and Samoa filed a formal request to recognize ecocide—purposeful and severe environmental destruction—as a crime in the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court (ICC). If the request is approved, ecocide would be recognized as a gross violation of international law akin to war crimes and genocide.

The request strikes at the urgent need to address one of the consequences of environmental desecration and the climate emergency: displacement. Already, people are forced to leave their homes, pushed out by extractive industries who raze the soil and pollute the water. As the planet heats and oceans rise, many more will have no choice but to flee. By 2050, an estimated 216 million people will be internally displaced due to climate-related factors; an unknown number will be further pushed to seek safety across state borders. But there remains no reliable mechanism of international protection to address this crisis. The request to recognize ecocide as a crime under the Rome Statute lays bare the need to close this protection gap and ensure that the victims of environmental destruction have the right to seek safe harbor elsewhere.

 

WHAT IS ECOCIDE?

The Rome Statute currently codifies four crimes—genocide, crimes against humanity, war crimes, and crimes of aggression—as of grave concern to the international community. While most proceedings in public international law are brought against states, the ICC prosecutes individual violators of the Rome Statute.

The term ‘ecocide’ was first popularized by Swedish Prime Minister Olof Palme in 1972 at a United Nations Conference on the Environment in Stockholm, where he condemned the United States’ use of Agent Orange in Vietnam. Agent Orange, an herbicide widely known for its devastating health consequences, destroyed local biodiversity in Vietnam, killing off at least 30% of the mangrove population. The soil and water in affected areas remain contaminated with dioxin. The United States Agency for International Development (USAID) and the Department of Defense have pledged $300 million to cleanup efforts, although this sum is unlikely to be a sufficient remedy. At present, international law covers wartime environmental destruction like the usage of Agent Orange, but not harms committed during peacetime.

While Agent Orange brought the conversation about ecocide to the fore, it is certainly not the first or the last event to qualify. Advocates often cite the Deepwater Horizon oil spill and mass deforestation of the Amazon rainforest as potentially prosecutable crimes of ecocide. Deep sea mining, fracking, and the exploitation of the Niger Delta are other examples of environmental damage that could amount to ecocide. Whether or not climate change writ large would qualify as ecocide remains an open question.

For an act to qualify as ecocide, a panel of legal experts drafted the following definition, which was later submitted by Vanuatu in their request to amend the Rome Statute:

Article 8(1): For the purpose of this Statute, “ecocide” means unlawful or wanton acts committed with knowledge that there is a substantial likelihood of severe and either widespread or long-term damage to the environment being caused by those acts.

This definition sets out two thresholds for an act to qualify as ecocide. Firstly, the act must be committed with the knowledge that it is likely to cause severe damage that is widespread or long-term. The drafters adapted the laws governing the treatment of nature during war to determine the meaning of ‘severe,’ ‘widespread’, and ‘long-term’. Secondly, recognizing that there may be acts that harm the environment but reap greater socio-economic benefits, the drafters required that the act be either unlawful or ‘wanton’. The wanton-ness clause would require jurists to weigh the extent of the damage against potential development gains.

Critical legal theorists have criticized the definition on several accounts. The wanton requirement opens up the possibility to write off environmental harm in the name of economic growth. In doing so, the definition ultimately upholds the principle that land is primarily a resource to extract for human gain. This principle conflicts with the belief system of many Indigenous communities, who have a deep connection to their territories and seek to live in harmony with nature.

Yet, despite its shortcomings, codifying ecocide as an international crime within the Rome Statute has significant potential to close accountability gaps currently present in international environmental law. Business executives would no longer be able to hide behind their respective corporations to absorb large fines for mass environmental destruction. Instead, they would face potential imprisonment for their actions.


Click here to read the full brief.

 

USCRI, founded in 1911, is a non-governmental, not-for-profit international organization committed to working on behalf of refugees and immigrants and their transition to a dignified life.

For inquiries, please contact: [email protected]

 


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